How to get a job in the Obama administration

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

If Barack Obama inspired you so much that after voting for him you now want to work for him, there are thousands of jobs to be had in the new administration.

There are coveted presidential appointments and a huge array of staff positions. But you have to start the ball rolling right now, especially if you weren’t an integral part of the presidential campaign.

You can head over to the newly minted Web site for the Obama transition team and fill out an application for a job right on the site. But like traditional job sites, this strategy probably won’t get you very far. Getting a job with the new administration is pretty much like getting any job: It’s all about connections.

Samuel Mok landed a job as comptroller for the Treasury Department under President Reagan, and he also went on to work for both Presidents George Bush and George W. Bush.

He had worked in corporate America and then became a foreign service officer prior to applying for the comptroller’s job after spotting it in a newspaper ad in the late 1980s.

“It’s a highly competitive process,” Mok says. “For every position, there are countless numbers of people wanting the job. The more allies you can bring to table, the better chance you have.”

Work those connections
Those allies come from connections you may have established working or volunteering for the Obama campaign, or the ones you make now using some detective work and your existing network of contacts.

Strategies to land a job with the administration are varied depending on where you are in your career trajectory.

If you’re just out of college, some experts suggest heading to Washington and volunteering for any position you can get.

“My advice to 20-somethings is to move to Washington, D.C., and work for either the presidential transition or the inauguration,” says Michael Gordon, who worked on President Clinton’s transition team and now runs Group Gordon, a public relations firm. “You generally have to start off as a volunteer, but if you’re persistent and patient, those volunteer jobs turn into paying jobs and then administration jobs.”

For midlevel career types, the key is working your contacts, connecting with key local presidential campaign organizers, and clearly linking your experience to your desired position or department.

Find the job you want, says Mok, “and then figure out who you know and work the channels and openly lobby for that job.”

Last week, the Obama camp released information about its transition team, including names of key staff members.

Knowing this information gives you an inside view of who will be running the show. Now you can figure out if you have any connections with these individuals by using sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook. You can try to contact them directly or contact one of their friends, or friends of friends.

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